Shareholders, Analysts Heart Carlyle Amid Stream of Exits

Carlyle Group has grabbed headlines lately with its prolific buying. But the private-equity firm has also been a busy seller, which is good news for Carlyle shareholders, say Credit Suisse analysts.

So far this quarter Carlyle has delivered “a healthy stream of realizations,” including four secondary stock offerings that returned $3.6 billion and the sales of four portfolio companies with a collective value of about $5 billion, the analysts wrote in a research note.

Realizations are a key component of the cash Carlyle and other publicly traded private-equity firms distribute to shareholders each quarter. For Carlyle, realizations have roughly doubled from the second quarter, said the analysts said, who predict a “meaningful ramp in cash earnings through late 2012 and into 2013.”

“We expect Carlyle to declare cash distributions of $2.35 over the next twelve months, implying a yield of 9%,” they wrote.